Nichi Hodgson

Hodgson was born and grew up in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. She was educated at the independent Wakefield Girls' High School. She graduated from the University of York with a first class honours degree in English and Related Literature in 2006. Hodgson then undertook a National Council for the Training of Journalists diploma in magazine journalism at Harlow College in Essex.[3][4]

Following internships at the BBC, New Statesman, and the Erotic Review, Hodgson worked in legal journalism at The Law Society, before moving to Standpoint magazine as production editor and contributing writer. While working in the unpaid internships in London, she worked as a part-time dominatrix.[5] During this time she began to freelance for the Guardian, BBC Radio 5 Live, BBC Radio 2 and Sky News, commenting on gender, civil liberties and technology issues. In 2012, she reported on rival Tokyo Pride celebrations in Japan for the New Statesman, Guardian and BBC Radio. She left Standpoint to go freelance soon after. She wrote the 'Sexual Adventurer' column for Men's Health' which ran until 2016.

Hodgson has written about sexuality and society from a psychological and investigative perspective, covering everything from the science of BDSM,[6] to dating apps that run criminal record checks.[7] She once openly criticised a Tory MP who once euphemistically invited her to "tea",[8] before telling her he couldn't take her to the Buckingham Palace Garden Party because of her sex-positive journalism. In 2017, a video of Hodgson debating Men's Rights Activist Mike Buchanan on Kay Burley's Sky News show went viral when Buchanan failed to respond to her statistical evidence of discrimination against women. Buchanan conceded that one path to equality would be for men to do women's housework.[9]

Hodgson is a regular commentator on Sky News and frequently dissects the papers on the Sky Sunrise Paper Review, where she is paired with the Telegraph's Brexit editor Asa Bennett (Hodgson is a vocal Remainer). She is also a regular guest on BBC3, BBC World News, BBC Radio 2 and 4, and Eamonn Holmes' TalkRadio show. Her documentary, 'Can Porn Be Ethical?' was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015, and she was a guest in an episode of Late Night Woman's Hour alongside Caitlin Moran in 2016. Her most recent radio documentary, 'Being Bisexual',[10] was broadcast in July 2017 on the BBC World Service, for which she was short-listed for the DIVA Journalist of the Year 2018 award. In May 2018 she appeared on The Big Questions calling for a reinvention of sex robots, the use of tech to heal PTSD and trauma, and the potential care of elderly people with AI and robotic assistance. Hodgson currently writes for the Times business insert Raconteur[11] on health and technology issues, and The Critic magazine on gender and mental health.[12] Most recently she has contributed to ex-Head of BBC News James Harding's new launch, Tortoise Media.[13] Topics covered include the future of contraception and the abuse facing LGBT+ people on dating apps.[14] In July 2019 she appeared as a dating expert in episode two of Romesh Ranganathan's BBC One Show, The Ranganation.[15]

Her first book, Bound To You, a BDSM memoir, was published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2012, which she wrote in just six weeks.[16][17] Her second book, The Curious History of Dating, was published by Little, Brown in January 2017. Spanning a three-hundred-year period, the book looks at the history of courtship and marriage from a feminist perspective, and includes the history of LGBT and mixed race relationships.[18] A review in the Law Gazette described it as a 'pacy, intelligent and authoritative account with bags of wit'.[19]

She is bisexual.[20] Hodgson got engaged to bar chain owner Ferdie Ahmed in January 2019[21][22] and married him at Old Marylebone Town Hall on 4 November 2020.[23]

• Nichi Hodgson at IMDb